I asked Carolyn Schmidt, our citizen reporter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, if Iowans this time around would be trying to make up for the fact that they chose Kerry over Dean four years ago and thus did not pick a presidential winner. Here is her response and report on Friday (Dec. 28):
By Carolyn Schmidt
Cedar Rapids, Iowa– Iowans do want to make a winnable choice this time, although frankly it wasn’t the Iowans who took Dean out of contention last time. It was the media feeding frenzy over Dean’s rallying of his supporters after the caucus results were announced. He was yelling above the crowd noise at the time, and the broadcasters took out the background noise and just ran Dean’s over-the-top yelling. It was all pretty unfair–and of course was repeated ad infinitum, which just buried him.
I can report that foreign policy expertise is now expected to influence caucus-goers more than was the case before the Bhutto assassination. McCain, who hasn’t been campaigning heavily in Iowa but concentrating on New Hampshire, made an appearance at a Cedar Rapids restaurant yesterday.